The Summer's Ashes
by Androktones
Summary: During the Inquisition's first summer in Skyhold, Commander Cullen finds both temperatures and frustrations rising. A reflection on the seasons and the people within them. NSFW


"The Summer's Ashes"

Summer came to Skyhold with more gentleness than the winter had. It was only their first year in the new citadel, so each turn brought new surprises, both pleasant and not. Spring brought beautiful snow drops and a respite from the chill fingers of the icy wind, but the rains turned the courtyard into a muddy morass and made his ceiling leak. So it was with some enthusiasm that Commander Cullen Rutherford welcomed the arrival of the heat, which dried out the no-man's land between his tower and the main hall. That was, of course, until the complaining began.

The heat wilted the plants in the garden. It made his recruits sluggish, and according to Dagna, did all sorts of odd things with her experiments that he didn't really understand.

"Much too hot," Dorian had sniffed at chess the other day, his jaunty mustache drooping, "I _so_ much prefer the cold. A mug of mulled wine, pile of furs in front of the fireplace…"

But then Iron Bull had sauntered by, somehow wearing even _less_ than he did normally, dark skin shining with the temperature, and Dorian had to admit that the summer had its advantages.

But still, Varric said it made his parchment curl and Cassandra even _more_ irritable, and Vivienne hated the way it made her _glow_ ("noble ladies don't _sweat_ , dear," she'd tutted at Sera, "they _glow_ "). Maker's Breath, the nobles who had taken up residence in the main hall like a flock of cacophonous parrots, they complained the loudest, and Cullen quickens his pace to cross the room and make it to the Inquisitor's chambers. His arms are heavily laden with reports and correspondence, half of which are probably proposals of marriage to the Inquisitor, a thought that makes his blood fizz and pop like lyrium (and that only makes him _madder_ , as he has no claim on her, and is his control really _that_ fickle?). Andraste's ashes, if _she_ complains, too, he might leap off a cliff.

It wasn't fair, he thinks, kicking the door shut behind him, to compare the Inquisitor to the other noblewomen he had met. He knows she is more than that, of course, more than the fluttery girls he had seen in Kirkwall, held aloft on palanquins. Evelyn Trevelyan is more than a woman whose ivory hand has slaves lifting burnished rods on their shoulders, hoisting their rouged cargo on satin cushions above the milling crowd. She'd never looked down her nose at him, at any of them, at Iron Bull, at Sera – _Sera_ , who hated nobles with every fiber of her slight being – and though she floated with supreme confidence through the crowds of clamoring aristocrats, making small talk effortlessly, remembering all their names, their interests, though she made her noble blood and Josephine proud, she was _better_ than all of that. She'd helped the troops build an outhouse once, back in Haven, and he'd heard Bull ribbing her for days about an abortive attempt to skin a rabbit for supper on the Wounded Coast. No, Evelyn Trevelyan never seemed to shy away from getting those delicate and now scarred hands of hers dirty.

But even so, _even so_ , Cullen finds himself agog at the sight that greets him when he enters her chamber.

The Inquisitor, the daughter of nobles, is on her knees, her upper body half in the fireplace as she scoops the winter's ashes into a pitch-lined basket at her side. And from where he stands, her almost heart-shaped rear fills his vision, all full and sinuous curves pulled taut and _straining_ against the silk fabric of her dress as she hums a tavern ditty.

 _"_ _Oh, I was a fool to pluck that flower,_

 _For my lady fair. On my honor I_

 _Swear to bring you dozens more within the hour_

 _If you give me leave to try…"_

Oh Maker have mercy, maybe it's the heat of summer, maybe it's the bead of sweat trickling down the nape of his neck, maybe it's the way her hips lift and her ivory shoulder blades just barely peek above the back of her gown as she moves. Maybe it because he's been kept awake recently by more than dreams of lyrium; he can feel the warmth of her hips beneath his palms, the way her skin would yield to his grip as he pulled her tight against him and how she'd moan his name, wanton and loud, a nobleman's daughter, the _Inquisitor_ , as he sheathed himself in her again and again and again-

He clears his throat.

"Oh!" she says, eyes bright and smiling when they meet his. He feels _filthy_ as she scoots backwards out of the fireplace and he can't look away. Her hem snarls on the flagstones and Cullen catches a glimpse of a pale calf, curving moonstone white against the dark and sooty hearth. And then Evelyn is standing, and it is only with great difficulty that he keeps his eyes on hers, and not on the pearlescent bead of sweat shining like a dewdrop between her collarbones and beginning its slow slide down and between her breasts.

"Inquisitor," he says, swallowing hard, and then, with a bit more levity, "is it spring cleaning?"

She smiles, wiping her sooty hands on her skirt and leaving ink-black smudges on the silk, before she says, "Would you believe I'm procrastinating? I'm supposed to be writing our supply list for the trip to the Exalted Plains."

He feels an eyebrow lift.

"You procrastinate by cleaning?"

She laughs, and he wishes he could crawl inside the sound, warm and honey-rich.

"I'd rather clean a thousand fireplaces than write another letter rejecting a marriage proposal. For me _or you_ ," she replies, teasingly, stepping over to the washbasin and beginning to rinse her hands.

Cullen can feel the heat rising to his cheeks and sets the reports down on a side table to distract himself. "Oh, I didn't realize some of them were…for _me_?"

" _Scads_ ," she replies liltingly, walking back over to where he stands at the landing. But then her blue eyes go dark, and those finely arched, expressive brows draw together in a frown. Evelyn asks, suddenly serious, "is that so hard to believe?"

He feels like he's made a mistake, but he doesn't really know _what_ , only that he would do anything to lift the clouded expression on her face. "Well, I- I suppose, you're the Inquisitor, and a noble, so it makes sense that you would receive such offers, not that you should _accept_ , but I, well, I never thought _I_ would be, that people would want, I mean, it seems rather daft…"

He swallows, trails off and finishes lamely, "…Inquisitor."

But that look, that disappointment-tinged-with-anger look, is still roiling in her eyes, and even though the doors are open to let in a breeze, the room feels stiflingly warm, and Evelyn snaps, "For Maker's mercy, Cullen! Half of the Orlesian court is tupping their maids or manservants in broom closets while the common folk fall in love. The current king of Fereldan tries to make things better and was born a bastard, while his legitimate half-brother floundered. My family's noble, but only just, and without the Inquisition we'd barely be able to afford our own home. If you ask me, too much stock in nobility and not enough in being able to get things done helped get us into this mess in the first place! And you seem _surprised_ that someone would want you to, _well_ \- for influence, or power, or even just because you're kind, and generous, and handsome and-"

And then her eyes widen and she claps a hand over her mouth and whirls, soot-stained skirts flaring as she scoops up the pile of reports. Resting them in the crook of her elbow, she runs a palm over her forehead.

"I'm sorry," Evelyn murmurs, straightening, "I think the heat is getting to me. Maybe inhaled too much ash," and she turns away. He didn't even know he had _moved_ , but Cullen's hand is closing around her wrist, which is delicate, _so delicate_ , and the maps and letters cascade in unfurling parchment and wax-stamped seals onto the fine Antivan carpet.

Her wide eyes find his and Cullen is proud of the steadiness in his voice when he murmurs, "you have some soot, here," as the pad of his thumb sweeps over her cheekbone, over the faintest hint of freckles and the blue-grey ashes of a winter's fire.

The curve, the weight of her features rests against his palm, and her eyes close and her lips part and he can _feel_ the pressure of his blood in his veins when she exhales softly, _so softly_. It is quiet as the summer breeze rustling feather-light against the curtains when her voice says, "Cullen…"

And then his mouth is on hers, artless but desiring, lips pressed hard and Maker help him she tastes like the summer sun filtering through the windows and salvation and _purity_ and it must be the last that makes the last slender thread of his control snap. His fingers pull fast in her copper-burnished hair, craning her head back, tender as a spring snowdrop's bud as his teeth scrape against the sweat-slicked skin, and even the bitter ashes he finds at the curve of her neck taste sweet.

" _Cullen,_ " she gasps out into the heat, but he is a man possessed now, he can't _breathe_ the scalding summer air without her here; even so, he pulls back far enough to meet her eyes, to take in the sight of her, collarbones and breasts heaving, pulse thrumming hard against the slender arc of her throat. He gulps in lungfuls of air, once, twice, and a third time, waiting, letting her decide.

But then her kiss-bruised lips form the shape of his name anew and whisper, "kiss me again," and Cullen's left hand stays fisted in her hair as the other wraps around her narrow waist. He lifts, and thank the Maker it is so unseasonably warm and he is without his plate mail, because he can feel her ribs expanding with quivering breaths against his chest as her lips part to his. She tastes of the summer's first peaches, delicate, firm but yielding, sweet and tart and then his knees knock against the bedframe and he twists as they fall, until she is splayed in his lap and the way she _wriggles_ to straddle him, sooty skirt rucking up, her smooth legs pressed against his trousers and one of his hands sweeping against the silken-soft space just on the inside of her knee - _oh, mercy on me_ -

His lips fasten over the peak of a breast, tongue pressing at her through the thin silk of her summer dress, and she hisses high and tight as his teeth worry the bud, her nails scraping against his scalp as she gasps his name into empty air. The hand in her hair loosens and falls, dipping beneath the silken fabric, cupping the curve where he feels her heartbeat beneath his sword-callused palm.

Her hand grips his chin almost too hard and she kisses him, with little grace and littler hesitation, teeth pinprick sharp on his lower lip. Evelyn cants her hips again, and he swallows her throaty whispers when she says, "touch me."

She grips his hand within her own, and guides it over the curve of her breast, over the sooty palm prints on her skirt and on her thigh and _between_.

"Please," she says, and Cullen fights the beast that flares in his blood as his fingertips meet not silk or satin or cotton but just the scalding, velvet heat of _her_. They slip within almost effortlessly, dipping ever so slightly between her folds and she gasps, _exquisite_. It feels almost idolatrous as his thumb presses and she trembles - small, high pants, fingers gripping his shoulders.

"Please," she whispers again, and he complies, circling, teasing, dipping within to gather more of her slick desire, thumb writing "x"s and "o"s until a finger, then two, slips within her spread sex, skirts bunched around her waist and nipples stiff against the dampened fabric of her dress, and she shakes like a willow in an autumn's squall, bending but not breaking. Maker, he's never seen anything so beautiful as her flushing hot when she whispers, reverent, "I'm coming."

He can feel her pulse against his fingers where they still lie against the jointure of her parted thighs, and after a moment she nips at his lips gently, sanguine, sated. Cullen fights the shame bubbling in his gut, bleeding in the empty spaces of his chest at how he has slaked his lust, at the unquenchable desire that still coils in him, at the hard jut of his cock against his trousers. He buries his head against her to block out the light.

"I wanted," he whispers against the fabric-covered curve of a breast, but he gulps in air and begins again, "Evelyn-"

He uses her name so rarely, and it drips like honey or holy chrism on his lips, like a sinner seeking absolution – "I wanted it to be slower, sweeter, _better_ but I _can't. I can't_ "

"I want you," she replies, silencing him with the sinuous roll of her hips against his straining breeches, "slow or fast, sweet or hard, I don't- _Oh_ "

When he maneuvers her onto the mattress, his palms get covered in ashes, but she gathers up her dirty skirts in her own arms, letting them bunch beneath her breasts where she kneels, and Cullen's hands trace the flare of her rear, the swell of her hipbones.

It isn't right, it isn't _proper_ to take a nobleman's daughter on her hands and knees like two beasts rutting, but when his hand paints a soot mark on the curve of her hip in turning her and she tosses her sweaty hair over a pale, scarred shoulder, mewling, "now, Cullen, _now_ "…well, he thinks he loves her, then.

His fingers tangle in the laces of his breeches, pushing them to his knees, and his cock springs free, and it is only with a heavy, tortuous breath that he restrains himself from sinking to the hilt. But he can't, he can't, _he can't_ ; even though he prays there will be a hundred, a thousand, a _lifetime_ of other opportunities for this, they live on the razor's edge of safety, and he cannot promise himself that he will ever feel the heat of her again…and so this moment must be slow, must be deliberate, _good_ and _pure_ as the first winter's snow, just like she deserves.

He presses against her, gripping his length in one palm as the other rests on the base of her spine, and he circles her bud once, twice with his cock's crown, before he dips into her, an inch, maybe more, before withdrawing. And again, a little deeper. His teeth grit. Just a few more shallow thrusts, and then –

"Fuck," Evelyn hisses, and it is so _hot_ , and then she presses a flattened palm against the headboard and _pushes_ , spearing herself hard and fast, and she is _so_ tight and _so_ scalding and _so_ Maker-damned perfect that Cullen's eyes roll back, his hand on her back faltering, smearing the blue-black soot across her flushed skin.

"Maker, _Evelyn,_ " he groans, trying to hold her there, but she won't _stop_ ; even impaled on his length as she is, she is circling her hips, rocking slightly, and he can feel her walls fluttering hard.

"You were moving too slowly," she whispers, voice tremulous and rough even through a smile, before she leans forward on her elbows, letting his cock slip almost entirely from her heat. She casts a look back over her shoulder, teeth edging along her lip. "Now quit treating me like fine china. _Fuck me_."

So he does. He fucks her like he never will touch her again, until the blue-black of the ashes melts into bruises on her hips, until the flush of the summer day on her neck becomes the scrape of his teeth, the shape of his lips, until her voice cracks hard on his name and he wrings delicious obscenities from her trembling throat, until her body goes ramrod straight and then limp for a second time, until she turns over and pulls him down with white arms to her pliant, soft frame.

And when he sinks into her then, it isn't with fury or desperation, but with tears buzzing behind his eyes as her fingers rake through his sweat-drenched hair and her ankles lock behind his back. And she, his _goddess_ , pure and polluted and pure all over again, whispers, "Cullen, Cullen, Cullen, let go," and he _does_ , white-hot bursts of starlight pluming behind clenched eyes, muscles sparking in electric coils as he empties himself within her.

He weighs as much as a thousand worlds, but he manages to fall on his side rather than on top of her. The enormity of what has just happened hangs suspended above his head – he just _fucked_ her, and shouldn't he be better than that, and he is older than her, and common, and she has so much on those slim, soot-marked shoulders already- but her voice threads through his ears clear as a robin's first call.

"I can hear your thoughts churning already."

He opens his eyes, and Evelyn lies beside him. She pulls her soot-stained dress over her head without shame, letting the sweat- and soot-stained fabric fall away from her skin, burnished honey-gold by the afternoon sunlight.

"Wait a moment," she whispers, thumb pressing against his parted lips before she turns away, rummaging beside the bed and, before he even blinks, her thumb is gone and a sliver of soft peach flesh has replaced it. The fruit is sweet, but still tart, perhaps a tiny bit mealy…not perfect. Not perfect until her hand meets his chest and pushes him onto his back and she is astride him, kissing his juice-covered lips like she is sealing a vow.

"The summer's first," Evelyn murmurs, and Cullen grins.

Comments, constructive criticism always welcome!


End file.
